The wild cheering of the crowd beneath cut short these speculations, and now I saw Blondel cantering gayly round the circle, with a handkerchief in his mouth. If in sportive levity it chanced to fall, he would instantly wheel about and seize it, and then, whisking his tail and shaking his long forelock, resume his course again. It was fine, too, to mark the haughty indifference he manifested towards that whip-cracking monster who stood in the centre, and affected to direct his motions. Not alone did he reject his suggestions, but in a spirit of round defiance did he canter up behind him, and alight with his forelegs on the fellow's-shoulders. I am not sure whether the spectators regarded the tableau as I did, but to _me_ it seemed an allegorical representation of man and his master. The hard breathing of a person close behind me now made me turn my head, and I saw the jailer, who had come with my supper. A thought flashed suddenly across me. “Go down to those mountebanks, and ask if they will sell that cream-colored pony,” said I. “Bargain as though you wanted him for yourself; he is old and of little value, and you may, perhaps, secure him for eighty or ninety florins; and if so, you shall have ten more for your pains. It is a caprice of mine, nothing more, but help me to gratify it.” He heard me with evident astonishment, and then gravely asked if I had forgotten the circumstance that I was a prisoner, and likely to remain so for some time. “Do as I bade you,” said I, “and leave the result to me. There, lose no more time about it, for I see the performance is drawing to a close.” “Nay, nay,” said he; “the best of all is yet to come. The pretty Moorish girl has not yet appeared. Ha! here she is.” As he spoke, he crept up into the window beside me, not less eager for the spectacle than myself. A vigorous cheer, and a loud clapping of hands below announced that the favorite was in sight long before she was visible to our eyes. “What can she do?” asked I, peevishly, perhaps, for I was provoked how completely she had eclipsed poor Blondel in public favor. “What can she do? Is she a rope-dancer, or does she ride in the games of the ring?” “There, there! Look at her; yonder she goes! and there's the young Prince--they call him a Prince, at least--who follows her everywhere.”